History is in the making for San Antonio Hams in 2009. All of the major Ham Clubs in San Antonio appear to be reaching agreement in coordinating a single Field Day location rather than holding a half dozen separate locations as had been done in the past.

AARO led the way, after losing their normal comfy spot over by the VA Hospital. They started the search for a new location, and thanks to our Ham Radio ties with the City of San Antonio, specifically our ties with the Fire Department, they found a new location to hold Field Day. The City Fire Department offered them the use of their Firefighters Training Academy, located west of the downtown area near Hwy 151 and Callaghan Road, as the site of their 2009 Field Day event.

Then, and I’m not sure who approached whom, all of a sudden there was talk about SARC relocating and combining their support of this event. A few weeks later, I’m told that ROOST has agreed to relocate and support this event at the Academy. The SARO Board of Directors talked about it this past week, and decided it would be good to have SARO participate as well this year. Wade W5ERX, president of Hill Country REACT Team, said he would present this idea to the REACT membership with the suggestion that REACT join in the efforts. Since all of the above groups are the core of the Bexar County ARES group, it could be thought of as having that group involved also (since that was the link that helped seal the deal).

Bob K5AUW, president of AARO, told me that any other local ham clubs interested in participating were welcome to contact him, that he wasn’t closing the door on other clubs joining in this history making event. He mentioned specifically that the Baptist Men’s Emergency Group (who usually operates their own FD from the parking lot of the Baptist Federal Credit Union on IH-10 near West Ave & Vance Jackson) as another possible group to be approached to join this effort.

I’ve heard talk of using K5EOC as the “club call” for the event, because apparently the Firefighter Training Academy also doubles as the City’s backup EOC. Therefore we can operate as category “F” for EOC operations, earn extra points for doing so, and even use AC power if we so desire.

Each club / group was asked to bring a large banner to be displayed together, and Gary K5GST is already working up ideas for local publicity on the day of, and possible national publicity after the fact.

Field Day will be June 27/28, 2009. Official rules and information can be found at ARRL’s website.